Retrouvailles
by EmilyFuckingFitch
Summary: It was never supposed to end this way, Shaw thinks. It was never supposed to be Root. AU, in which Root sacrifices herself instead of Shaw. Set in 4x11.


It was never supposed to end this way, Shaw thinks.

It was never supposed to be Root.

Her eyes droop as she struggles to stay awake, leaning heavily against Fusco. She feels her breathing become shallower, her heartbeat begin to slow.

80 beats per minute.

75 beats per minute.

70 beats per minute.

Shaw pushes herself off of Fusco's shoulder to stand on her own. She staggers, wobbling, her head foggy. Still she tries to walk towards the metal screen and unlock the latch. To stop what Root's about to do and rid herself of this familiar sinking feeling she's felt once before.

Because there's still time, Shaw tells herself. There's still time to push the override button herself. There's still time to drag Root back to the elevator and stop Root from getting herself killed. This isn't where Root ends. This isn't where she dies.

Root can't be like Cole. Shaw can't let her be.

But her legs aren't doing what she wants them to do. Her muscles are too lax, her movements too sluggish, her weight too heavy on her feet.

She falls, her knees giving out.

Fusco wraps his arm around her waist, tries to pull her up. Shaw feels the soft pity under his gaze and anger flares in her chest. She wants to push him away from her, because even without looking at him she knows he's waiting for the barbiturates that Root injected in her neck to take effect, for its contents to swim in her bloodstream, for Shaw to resign herself to her impending sleep. She feels his sympathy so palpable against her skin and she hates it.

Sticky.

Suffocating.

Apologetic.

"There's nothing else we can do, Shaw," Fusco says softly.

At that, she does try to push him away and slam him against the wall. Because there is something they can do, and she knows that Fusco knows it too. There's another way, one that involves a different sacrifice but can make Root stay alive.

But the sedatives are flooding her veins faster than she wants them to, the energy seeps out of her with the raise of her hand, and her shove comes to be a light press against his shoulder, barely moving him.

Root yelps.

Shaw looks up to find Root bleeding from her abdomen, kneeling on the floor with her hand pressed against the wound. Even with her head groggy and her eyes unfocused, Shaw can tell that there's no exit wound. Root's losing blood. Too much blood. Shaw knows that Root's going to lose consciousness in five minutes. Three if she takes her hand off the wound.

One if she's shot again.

The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach magnifies tenfold, bile clawing up her throat. The nausea overwhelms her.

"Press it, Harold," Root commands through clenched teeth.

The elevator begins to shift, the metal doors closing in on itself.

Her blood boils.

"Stop the elevator," Shaw slurs, the anger in her words burning the back of her throat.

"Ms. Shaw," Finch says, his voice shaky but certain. "We cannot let Ms. Groves' sacrifice be in vain."

Shaw tries lunge at Finch, tries to claw at his throat, but Fusco's grip on her only tightens, and she can't.

Root isn't a pawn, she wants to yell at him, to engrain it in his head. Root's so much more than a sacrifice. She was their entire mission. Her entire mission.

But she doesn't. Her mouth feels like cotton, her jaw numb. The words she desperately wants to say are stuck in the back of her throat before she has a chance to say them.

Shaw looks back at Root, her eyes blinking lazily. She sees Root leaning against the wall, shooting her guns—Shaw's guns—at Samaritan operatives, and all that races in her hazy head is how Root's the one who's supposed to be in here instead of out there. All that she can hear in her ears is Root's soft apology before she injected the needle into Shaw's neck, sounding too much like an "I love you" and a "Don't forget me," and a "Goodbye." All she can feel is this hollowness in her chest, something that feels too much like loss and pain and regret and she wants to rip them out of her chest and make them stop.

Root doesn't get to do this to her. She doesn't get to worm her way inside Shaw's still heart like Cole did, doesn't get to put these emotions in her and make her believe that they aren't a kind of weakness, and leave. She doesn't get to make her feel, make her start to think that it isn't a mistake, and leave.

Root doesn't get to leave.

Root can't.

She feels the edges of her vision begin to blur, her body suddenly heavy like lead. She can't keep her eyes open.

It was never supposed to be Root, Shaw thinks.

It was supposed to be her.

A gunshot rings in Shaw's ears as she closes her eyes, fading out of consciousness.


End file.
